Edinburgh Napier University

  Synchronous fluorescence spectroscopy (SFS) was directly applied to rapidly quantify selected polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs: benzo[a]pyrene and pyrene) in aqueous hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin (HPCD) soil extract solutions from a variety of aged contaminated soils containing four different PAHs. The method was optimized and validated. The results show that {SFS} can be used to analyse benzo[a]pyrene and pyrene in {HPCD} based soil extracts with high sensitivity and selectivity. The linear calibration ranges were 4.0 × 10−6–1.0 × 10−3 mM for benzo[a]pyrene and 6.0 × 10−6–1.2 × 10−3 mM for pyrene in 10 mM {HPCD} aqueous solution alone. The detection limits according to the error propagation theory for benzo[a]pyrene and pyrene were 3.9 × 10−6 and 5.4 × 10−6 mM, respectively. A good agreement between {SFS} and {HPLC} was reached for both determinations of {PAHs} in {HPCD} alone and in soil {HPCD} extracts. Hence, {SFS} is a potential means to simplify the present non-exhaustive hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin (HPCD)-based extraction technique for the evaluation of {PAH} bioavailability in soil.